Mouthpieces for cigarettes



April 7, 1970 R. E. PITT I MOUTHPIECES FOR CIGARETTES Filed Sept. 10,1968 United States Patent 3,504,678 MOUTHPIECES FOR CIGARETTES RogerEdward Pitt, London, England, assignor to Molins Machine CompanyLimited, London, England, a corporation of Great Britain Filed Sept. 10,1968, Ser. No. 758,807 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Sept.15, 1967, 42,271/ 67 Int. Cl. A24d 01/04, 01/06 US. Cl. 131-105 7 ClaimsABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This invention concerns improvements in orrelating to mouthpieces for cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos or othersmokable articles which will hereinafter be referred to as cigarettes,and is particularly concerned with mouthpieces containing a loosematerial for treating smoke drawn through the mouthpiece by the smokerby, for example, filtering it, which material is of a nature such that,to be effective it has to be properly packed in the mouthpiece. Examplesof such materials are particulate or granular materials, such as carbon,used for filtering tobacco smoke. Further examples are granularmaterials intended to have a chemical or physico-chemical filteringeffect on the smoke or to have some other effect such as flavouring it.

One of the problems which arises in incorporating a loose material in acigarette mouthpiece is that of packing and enclosing it reasonablytightly so that all the smoke passes through the material and none isallowed to bypass it. In practice it is found to be difficult to packparticulate material into a wrapping in a cigarette mouthpiecesufiiciently well to ensure that most of the space in the wrapping isfilled and there is virtually no by-passing.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an improvedmouthpiece for cigarettes.

According to the present invention there is provided a mouthpiece forcigarettes, having a quantity of a loose material for treating smokefrom the cigarette contained in an annular wrapping, and havingconstricting means acting on the wrapping to constrict the space itencloses and to effect tighter packing of the material containedtherewithin so as to cause smoke passed therethrough to come intocontact with the material rather than to bypass it.

Preferably the material is granular or particulate and it can becomposed of grains or particles of a wide range of sizes up to a certainsize which may, for example, be 1 mm. In one embodiment the material isa filtering material which acts to remove from the smoke not only someof the particulate phase of the smoke but also some of the gaseousphase. Preferably it is a material which does not adversely affect theflavour of the smoke and which is not toxic. The material may be anorganic polymer.

The constricting means can comprise a constricting member constrained toembrace the wrapping tightly and can be resilient. The degree ofresilience can be chosen according to the tightness of packing of thematerial that is required and the packing tightness may, in turn, bechosen to strike a balance between the conflicting re quirements offiltering efiicacy which calls for tight packing, and ease of draw whichcalls for loose packing. If, on the other hand, the arrangement is suchthat the material is quite loosely packed and, in fact, has some freedomof movement, then the constricting member may be non-resilient. Ineither case, however, it is convenient for the constricting member to bemore or less annular and even cylindrical.

The mouthpiece may be a. multi-stage mouthpiece having the material inone or more of its stages and is convenierttly a three stage filtermouthpiece, having the material in the centre stage and having the othertwo stages constituted by filter plugs. The mouthpiece can be enclosedwithin a further outer wrapping to which the constricting member issecured and conveniently this further wrapping can be used for unitingthe mouthpiece to its cigarette.

The invention extends to a method of making the mouthpiece describedcomprising the steps of enclosing the material in its wrapping, applyinga constricting member to the inside of a further, outer wrapping andenclosing the wrapped material in the further wrapping to constrict thespace it encloses and to effect tighter packing of the materialcontained therewithin. A succession of constricting members can beapplied, for instance by adhesive, to a continuous web of outer wrappingmaterial which may be cut into strips which are then wrapped and thensealed around assemblages of cigarettes and mouthpieces to unite them.

Alternatively the continuous web of outer wrapping material may becontinuously wrapped about a continu- 'ously formed mouthpiece rodhaving a series of stages of the material enclosed within its wrapping,the whole being then cut up and subsequently attached to tobacco rods toform mouthpiece cigarettes. This method is particularly suitable forforming mouthpieces which are also as described in United Statesapplication Ser. No. 701,648 filed Jan. 30, 1968.

The invention also extends to apparatus having means for carrying outthe various steps of the methods described.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example,with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a section of a mouthpiece cigarette, and

FIGURE 2 is a transverse section of the cigarette on the line 11-11 ofFIGURE 1.

Referring to the drawing the cigarette comprises a tobacco rod 1 securedto a mouthpiece having three stages namely end stages comprising filterplugs 2 and 3 and between them a central stage of granular filteringmaterial 4, by means of an outer wrapper 5. The three stages 2, 3 and 4are encased within an inner wrapper 6 and to the outer wrapper 5 thereis secured a band 7 of resilient material which is constrained toconstrict the inner wrapper 5 in the region of the granular material 4thereby to compact it so as to tend to eliminate bypasses and to causeall the smoke drawn from the tobacco rod 1 to come into close contactwith sufiicient of the material 4 to be properly filtered thereby.

It is to be noted that the band 7 does not extend across the whole widthof the opened out wrapper 5, but only across such part of the width ascorresponds with the circumference of the mouthpiece: that is to say theband 7 does not extend on to the part of the wrapper which overlapsitself and is used to seal the wrapper.

The cigarette shown is produced by the method of arranging a doublelength mouthpiece between two cigarette lengths, uniting the threecomponents by means of an outer wrapper which extends over the whole ofthe double length mouthpiece and over a short length of each cigarettelength, and cutting the mouthpiece in the middle to form two completemouthpiece cigarettes. Thus in manufacture, the outer wrapper band isinitially twice the width of the band 5, and two bands 7 are secured toit before it is wrapped around the double-length mouthpiece and the endsof the cigarette lengths.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A mouthpiece for a cigarette comprising an e1on gated multi-stagefilter at least one of said stages comprising particulate material fortreating smoke from the cigarette and having filter plug elements onopposite sides thereof, an inner wrapper about said particulatematerial, an outer wrapper about said multi-stage filter and innerwrapper, and a constricting member between said inner and outerwrappers, said constricting member having an axial length no greaterthan the axial length of said stage containing particulate material andbeing constrained by said outer wrapper to embrace said inner wrappertightly to effect tighter packing of said particulate material containedtherewithin whereby the smoke passing therethough will come in contactwith said material and not by-pass it.

2. A mouthpiece according to claim 1, wherein said constricting memberis secured to the interior surface of said outer wrapper.

3. A mouthpiece according to claim 1, wherein the particulate materialis a smoke-filtering material comprising particles having a range ofdifferent sizes.

4. A mouthpiece according to claim 3, wherein the material is anon-toxic organic polymer which acts to remove some of the gaseous phasefrom the smoke as well as some of the particulate phase.

5. A mouthpiece according to claim 1, wherein the constricting means isresilient.

6. A mouthpiece according to claim 1, wherein the constricting means isannular and surrounds the inner wrap-per and particulate material.

7. A mouthpiece cigarette having a mouthpiece according to claim 1,wherein said other wrapper extends over and is secured to at least aportion of the exterior surface of the rest of the cigarette.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,320,960 5/1967 Molins.

MELVIN D. REIN, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 13l265.

